Due to a health emergency, I am quitting the blog Libertarian Monks. It’s been a grand time, but all good things — as is true with bad things — must end.

Suffice to say, I would offer a serious and heartfelt thanks to all those crafty and intelligent band of classical liberal readers, however small a group they may be, who’ve stuck with us and read our brand x of vicious pontifications on limited government and the need for a constitutional revolution in these United States. You’re the best.

ROD DREHER is at it again (jeepers!) in a column written for The American Conservative, sometime before the congressional Republicans caved to the Obama White House agenda.

In “The Strangelove Republicans,” Dreher writes,

Today I heard an update on the radio from the fiscal crisis in Washington, and thought, “The Republicans really are going to push us over the edge.” I hope I’m wrong, of course, but it becomes more thinkable with each passing hour. I thought next about how hard we’ve worked to invest wisely, and to sock money away for retirement. If the world wakes up Thursday morning plunging into a 2008-style economic collapse, we could find our investments massively damaged. Some people we know have only now built their nest eggs back up after the 2008 disaster. We could be looking at that. Or worse.

In a previous column, good man Rod Dreher insisted he was not a leftist. But when it comes to his animus toward Republicans, he argues as a leftist. His reasons for opposing Republicans seem awfully close to the same reasons leftists oppose Republican policies, and or, strategy.

First, the President of the United States does not automatically get whatever budget he desires. Congress controls the purse of the Federal Government—at least constitutionally. So, Congress can decide against funding a program if it so desires.

Secondly, the 14th Amendment requires the interest on U.S. debt be paid (first) so there was no way Republicans could have “push [us] America off a cliff. Only Barack Obama could have done that which would have been a dereliction of his duty as President of these United States.

The 2008 financial collapse was not caused by the actions that Republicans recently sought to push. I am unsure of what Dreher’s point is here.

The economic collapse of 2008 was caused by government—too much of it—not Republicans shuttering government doors in order to force a cut in entitlement spending, debt concerns, etc. If Dreher is so concerned about fiscal matters, personal and public, then one might expect graver concern over ObamaCare. Of course, the last time Dreher talked about ObamaCare he talked almost giddy about how ObamaCare was settled law.

Considering what the Democratic Party and President Obama have done thus far with their power, Dreher’s last paragraph is a construction in stupidity. Dreher does get one thing right—which is the offensive nature the Republican Party seeks to baptize the Christian religion for political purposes.

Nevertheless, it is not the Grand Old Party that has brought America to the brink, but President Obama and his radical agenda. If Dreher is serious about classical liberalism—of free markets and free minds—he ought to comprehend such notions.

And writing this below does not address serious ills to his thinking:

Yes. I cannot believe I’m saying this, but I hope the House flips to the Democrats in 2014, so we can be rid of these nuts. Let Ted Cruz sit in the Senate stewing in his precious bodily fluids, and let Washington get back to the business of governing.

Differences of opinion do exist on the American right. And they should. But not this different! Given President Obama’s record alone Dreher should sense how nuts his point happens to be.

I myself (all about I!) attack Republicans and the mainstream conservative movement. But I do so in light of obvious inconsistencies with the rather consistent intellectual history of classical liberalism. Regardless, Republican mistakes in the past (which surely could justify bolting the party on principal) does not follow that a solution to our fiscal and governing mailse is to vote in a bunch of statist Democrats.

Insane.

Interesting! Rather than the soft tyranny of the statist left led by Obama the crank, being “nuts,” Mr Dreher fires at Republican conservatives and libertarians.

At their backs, no less.

What becomes inanity for Mr Dreher seems like the same manure professionally unserious misfits like MSNBC routinely throw on classical liberals in U.S. government.

Dreher can opine he is not a “liberal” day and night. But it might be nice—horrors!—for the crunchy con to rid himself of temerity and actually celebrate liberalism in the classical sense, coming onboard to defend it, cheering those on whom seek and fight for its preservation.

If Dreher is serious about prudent governance he should understand there is little wisdom to be found with what the Democratic Party has become in these years. Prudence does not come from utopian schemas which entangle sovereign individuals in regulatory purgatory.

The statist agenda whether practised on the right or the left has impoverished American society. Dreher would do well to recognise that his desire for prudent and sound government will not come through those policies Barack Obama and the Democratic Party supposes.

Rather, they cripple the kind of free markets and free minds schema necessary for the good and innovative society.

Congressional Republicans were slaughtered by the Obama White House in the government shutdown debacle.

Feckless Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), whom received a standing ovation for his meagre attempts — and whom was ultimately successful at crafting an agreement with with congressional Democrats —is also worthy of the strongest condemnation by serious classical liberals.

We should have known nothing of significance would be accomplished on entitlement spending, debt, or ObamaCare with such a force of impotency at the helm of congressional leadership.

Some will claim a Republican victory, as was noted here. But all that really can be said is a U.S. president with anemic poll numbers—with a whopping 86 percent of Americans thinking the country is headed in the wrong direction—President Obama was successfully able to defang Republicans. To be sure, this resided in Republican weakness, not President Obama’s strengths.

And it must be said that is an embarrassing place to be. But it is understandable. Think hard. If such were not the case, Barack Obama would not have won reelection.

We can be assured of that.

Many Republicans plan on fighting for another day. Where have we heard that kind of cheese before?

That’s the awful thing about Republicans. The aphorism about there being no time like the present to mount a robust, and dramatically inspired constitutional revolution to the Obama White House’s statist oligarchy resumes being perpetually at arm’s length.

It’s why Republicans lose at the national level—and also why fewer Americans see reason to vote for such an irrelevant political entity.

Dave Beilstein has been at it here as resident blogger (under two different site names) since around August of 2012.

I myself came on later to add some punch to an otherwise soporific blog—or at least to add a pinch or two of profanity now and again—with lean prose intended to rankle and offend the statist mindset.

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to look back at LM archives: what a depressing glance back into recent history that has been. Ugh.

Nevertheless, Beilstein was all over a Romney victory (as were many others). And whilst the little man can be forgiven, reading column after column reporting good news for Romney and bad juju for Bam-Bam Obama is still painful.

One should never relive the past all that much–besides an effort to avoid the same mistakes. Albert Einstein said something about that I recall.

I too, figured good man Mitt Romney would pull a victory out of President Obama’s atrocious political hand. And I was utterly amazed to watch those aspirations dashed when the electoral wave—come to God or whatever—did not show up, electing Barack Obama to a second term.

That means three more years of Pres. Barack H. Obama’s scatological nonsense.

Certainly, it was the wrong year to run a venture capitalist regardless of Obama’s record. That’s not Mr Romney’s fault. It is the fault of a G.O.P base, however, which pitches such moderates to the base few are enthusiastic over.

Clearly, voting against someone—even a tyrannical impostor like Obama—is not enough to stoke bellies-of-fire-and-rage on the right, propelling even a moderate to victory. I can deal with reading this blog’s errors in presidential predictions. It’s common. Everyone makes mistakes—even Beilstein.

What is becoming increasingly hard to conceive of, however, is how G.O.P. establishment types—horrors!—like Karl Rove and company, continue to tell conservatives how to win when all they do is nominate “moderate” losers. That’s truly where the shame really belongs, folks.

It is a rarified air for President Barack Obama not to be reckless, as we may call attention to the president’s perverse imprudence of late—especially in light of Rod Dreher’s unease with congressional Republican “ideologues.”

In President Obama’s battle against House Republicans, then, it is no surprise the president of these United States appears hell-bent on challenging the 14th Amendment, tempting to plunge the nation into default.

George F. Will does not always get everything right, but he did nail this issue. According to the U.S. Constitution, default would be a choice—not a necessity caused by congressional Republicans.

Aside from a battle over the funding of ObamaCare, it now appears we have a battle over the U.S. Constitution. In essence, a constitutional crisis emerges—even if the mainstream press will not admit it.

If one thought elections did not matter now is a good time to reverse such an opinion. They do matter. Libertarian Monks had as much problems with Mitt Romney as many of our faithful but modest band of readers.

But Romney would have been better than a mad-dog tyrant—doing a pretty good mimicry job a tyrant rather than a president.

Sounds harsh, I know.

But look around—take a glimpse at the purposeful chaos Barack Obama has unleashed upon American society; and ask oneself, is this what this man meant by radical transformation?

Over at The American Conservative website, W. James Antle III locked and loaded on Republicans. His point: we might as well accept Democratic Party victory on matters small and large because previous Republicans (from Congress to former Pres. George W. Bush) screwed things up so badly.

He writes,

Initially, the American people’s verdict on the government shutdown appeared to be “a pox on both their houses.” Republicans received plurality blame, but Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and both major parties took something of a hit in the early polls.

But as the shutdown has continued, public opinion is beginning to look as one-sided as it did in 1995-96, if it isn’t worse. The Republican Party’s favorability rating is at a record low, falling 10 points since September to just 28 percent. That’s the lowest for either major party since Gallup started asking the question in 1992.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found even worse results for the GOP. Most telling, approval of ObamaCare—though still low—has risen since October 1 despite a rocky roll-out. This does not bode well for efforts to use the shutdown as leverage to defund Obamacare.

Polling is ephemeral and the 2014 elections are the political equivalent of a lifetime away. But none of the falsifiable predictions made by the proponents of this tactic have come true. They said that the Democrats would make major concessions to avoid a shutdown. But the Obama administration is trying to implement the Obamacare exchanges and the government is still shut down.

It was argued that the country would rise up and demand the defunding of Obamacare in response to this confrontation. There is no evidence of such a popular revolt, and some reason to think the shutdown is actually hurting opposition to Obamacare. It was said that President Obama and the Democrats would take the blame for shutting down the government over an unpopular law. Nearly every major poll shows the blame running in the other direction.

The problem the defunders were always going to run into was this: Obama himself would have to agree to defund Obamacare. Failing that, the defunders would need to win over enough other Democrats to form veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress.

Needless to say, neither outcome was ever very likely. What’s more, the end game depended on producing an impasse so protracted and painful that the Democrats would be forced to reconsider. But that would require creating conditions just as likely to turn public opinion against Republicans.

Yet the leading proponents of the government shutdown are more popular with key portions of the conservative activist base than Republicans who are skeptical of this approach. These conservatives don’t care what the polls say, and even after the 2012 election, aren’t sure that the numbers haven’t been skewed by the liberal media.

What these conservatives want is to see their elected officials fight. They are tired of hearing Republicans make excuses as to why government spending cannot be cut. They don’t believe Republicans who say they will work to undercut or fix Obamacare later any more than they believe the Democrats will secure the border after passing an immigration amnesty.

In a very real sense, the Texas Republican who is most responsible for the current stalemate may not be Ted Cruz, but George W. Bush. In 2005, Republicans held the White House. They held both houses of Congress. Republican appointees entered the Supreme Court. The GOP enjoyed a 55-45 Senate majority.

Aside from the confirmation of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, conservatives have very little to show for this period of unified Republican control of the federal government. And after the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare with Roberts’s vote, that confirmation has begun to look like a mixed blessing at best.

Even before Bush, the Republican Congress was more interested in pork barrel, earmarks, and K Street favors than cutting government spending. After Bush, discretionary spending grew faster than it did under Bill Clinton. The biggest new entitlement program since LBJ’s Great Society was added to the federal budget. Another Cabinet-level department was created.

Ironically, much of this is convincing. Certainly too, much of it is true. Aside from that nightmare the question remains—so what?

Which is why I find irksome much of what The American Conservative publishes these days. It ends up being a “prudent” (conservative?) capitulation to Pres. Barack Obama’s statist agenda on (Russell) Kirk-ian grounds because TAC has fistfuls of animus against the Republican establishment and the mainstream conservative movement.

I, too, have large problems with the mainstream conservative movement. Add in the Republican establishment on top of that. Recent headlines on Libertarian Monks is ample proof.

But I have larger problems with ObamaCare, and larger problems still, with the raptor-armed president’s fiscal policies—policies which are anything but prudent.

Even still, I hear a hell of a lot of “prudent” preaching going on over at TAC in the face of one of the most imprudent fiscal and governing policies ever elected into high office. Conversely, the Founding Fathers established co-equal, separate branches of government to ensure such ideological battles would be fought to limit and degrade the most destructive collective capacity-driven legislation unleashed upon free citizens.

It does seem strange that poll numbers mean so much to TAC—and Mr Antle in particular.

It was not long ago when there was no support for nationalised healthcare. Or any of the other idiotic policies the left continues urge onto the population.

These policies are often enacted into law because statists do not share the “we’re losers, our positions suck” attitude that haunts this kind of pessimistic journalism on the American right.

It would seem however much we may scorn the reality, Republicans have abandoned classical liberals in America in order to wheel-and-deal with President Barack H. Obama and — horrors! — Senate Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

What this means, few know; less still, will offer much of an explanation. Other than, of course, Republicans have to fold.

Remember that old aphorism of “have to?”

Even still, a recent Gallup poll suggests the American people are disgusted with both political parties. President Barack H. Obama comes out slightly ahead (accordingly?) with higher approval ratings than both chambers of Congress with a paltry approval rating 36 percent.

It is not like one needed a poll to come to that conclusion. Republicans (again!) allowed Pres. Obama to lead the national conversation—despite having the upper-hand on numerous points of debate. In the news squared, support for a third party now runs close to 60 percent support from the American people in the same Gallup poll.

Of course, this does not matter much either—as there are literally dozens of third political parties with little or no support election after election.

Frankly, third parties are tempting—but electorally worthless. Not even former President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1913, could overcome the third party curse, going down in defeat against Wilson, and taking then-Pres. Taft with him.

In helping elect former Princeton President and New Jersey Governor, Woodrow Wilson to the presidency, T.R. cemented the battle against progressivism by classical liberals for 100 years. Certainly, one must admit the modern classical liberal movement is a cold war with the progressive context Pres. Wilson unleashed upon these United States, circumventing our constitutional framework.

Hell, I myself even joined the Libertarian Party of Florida because I was, and continue to be, violently disgusted with the Republican Party and the mainstream conservative movement.

But let us not be confused. The most viable libertarians whom are apart of the legislative and governing process in our Federal government are in the Republican Party. Had Ted Cruz or Rand Paul (both mainstream libertarians) run on a libertarian ticket, they would be sitting in front of the television on the outside of this nightmare.

Moreover, both Cruz and Paul have given us some of best of classically liberal talking points on a consistent basis since the pinnacle of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

So third parties are not realistic. Not until the G.O.P is no more at least.

Third parties are funny things, really. They are popular in poll after poll—but no candidate rides them anywhere but to defeat, often times, electing the worst of three candidates. We don’t need that—especially now.

It is obvious that something needs to change. That’s clear. Many another pundits on the American right have offered salient ideas.

The best comes from radio talk show host Mark R. Levin and his recent book, The Liberty Amendments; a cogent apologetic for a state-by-state legislative effort to reform, and recapture our Constitutional republic through amendment clauses.

More than simply an entertainment “shock jock,” Mr Levin has written the most robust Constitutional solution to our progressive, slash, tyrannical malaise in 40 some odd years.